Amazing Places on Earth: Lencois Maranhenses National Park

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A country of staggering beauty and diversity in all spheres of life, Brazil is never the same. At first glance, it is a place where you can go sunbathing under the burning sun, as well as a country famous for its soccer players and its grand carnivals that you can enjoy throughout the whole year. However, this is only a small part of its diversity. Brazil is a country, which history can turn you back in time to 1500, when it was discovered by the Portuguese Pedro Alvares Cabral. It is a country that has given the world “the father of aviation” Santos Dumont, the famous soccer player Pele, the talented F1 racer Aurton Senna, the architect Oscar Niemeyer, the writer Jorge Amado and a lot more famous people.

Nowadays Brazil is a developed industrial country that successfully competes in the global market of high-tech fields such as aerospace, automotive, information technology, and biotechnology. It is also one of the leading exporters of agricultural and livestock industry. With every year the country increases its production and strengthen its positions in the world, which makes it a reliable partner for cooperation.

Brazil is also a country of carnivals and indescribable show that is loved both by Brazilians themselves and also by tourists. The country is also a great place for people who are planning their holidays, because Brazilian resorts gives you the opportunity to choose between activities such as surfing, paragliding, windsurfing, rock climbing, and a lot more.

Brazil – this extremely diverse and remarkable country, a country of unexplored beauty and undiscovered secrets. There you can find areas of pristine rainforests, islands with ancient tropical beaches, and endless rivers. Moreover, it can reveal some of the most beautiful places in the world. Occupying almost the entire continent, Brazil has one of the richest ecosystems worldwide, which presents a huge number of different species of flora and fauna. It is a country of sand, mountains, rivers and forest.

Lencois Maranhenses National Park

If you happen to go in Brazil and visit Lençóis Maranhenses National Park you will probably think that you have somehow gone to a desert landscape. However, this is neither a desert landscape of a distant planet, nor a décor of one of the latest fantasy movies. These are the sand dunes of the Nature reserve Maranheses in the state of Maranhão, Brazil, which is located in the north part of the country and is situated near Baía de São José. This is 300 sq. km of white sand dunes and marvellous blue lagoons, which makes it one of the most beautiful and unique places worldwide.

It seems incredible, but you can see a “desert” in a country which holds about 30% of fresh water and is home to the largest rainforest in the world. However, the Maranheses National Par may somehow look like a desert to you, but it is not one, really.

The Natural reserve Lençóis Maranhenses is located near the Amazon River and was declared a protected area on June the 2nd, 1981. While it looks like a desert at first, it is not, and even has a rainy season, which is usually at the beginning of the year. Rains fall on the sand dunes and cause a specific phenomenon, which can’t be seen in many other places in the world – there is fresh water collected between the sand dunes and forms some gorgeous blue and green lagoons, which happen to be the deepest during July and September. Unlike the Sahara desert, for example, here there are 300 times more rainfall during the year. And during the dry season the water evaporates and the lagoons just disappear.

Another phenomenon which makes this place so famous is the fact that the crystal lagoons are home to many species of fish, turtles and shellfish. The mystery here lies in the fact that when the lagoons disappear, life comes back like it has never left the place. The eggs of the fish, turtles and other animal species are transported by different species of birds to the ocean, but there is also another hypothesis, which says that they are kept alive in the sand and are hatched during the next water season. This is exactly the time when lagoons become one of the most beautiful tourist attractions in Brazil.